Carbon nanotube

• But the top two killers are actually cardiovascular disease and cancer.
• These two diseases combined account for nearly 50% of deaths in the U.S. Cardiovascular disease and cancer seem to be quite different on the surface.
• It turns out that tiny, engineered nanoparticles that can target specific immune cells may be a way to treat both cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Cardiovascular disease and cancer

• Although cardiovascular disease and cancer appear to have different origins and causes, they share many risk factors.
• Many of the similarities between cardiovascular disease and cancer can be traced to inflammation.
• Likewise, chronic inflammation can initiate cancer by increasing mutations and support cancer cell survival and spread by increasing the growth of the blood vessels that feed them nutrients and suppressing the body’s immune response.

Treating two conditions at once

• One example is drugs that target immune cells called macrophages in tumors and cause them to eat cancer cells.
• It turns out a similar drug can cause macrophages to clear dead and dying cells in atherosclerosis, which shrinks plaques.
• These drugs can make diseased tumor blood vessels and atherosclerotic blood vessels look more “normal,” essentially reversing the disease process in those vessels.
• This approach to treat cancer also reduced atherosclerotic plaques in animal studies and reduced vascular inflammation in a small study in people.

A nanomedical Trojan horse

• A recent discovery showed that nanotubes – a very small particle made of carbon that is over 10,000 times thinner than a human hair – can go into specific immune cells, travel through the bloodstream and enter tumors as a Trojan horse.
• The immune cells carrying the nanotubes naturally home in on tumors through the inflammatory response.
• Nanotubes can be loaded with a therapy that stimulates immune cells to “eat” plaque debris and thus reduce plaque size.

Improving drug development

• The possibility of applying the same drug to two different patient populations offers big financial and risk-reduction incentives.
• This suggests opportunity for new nanotherapy approaches to improve cardiovascular drug efficacy and reduce side effects.
• Because of the parallels between cancer and cardiovascular disease, cancer nanodrugs may be strong drug candidates to treat cardiovascular disease and vice versa.

• As a (conductive) carbon additive, CNTs should be benchmarked against carbon black and the much-hyped two-dimensional material graphene.
• Carbon black typically has a higher CO2 footprint per kg than graphene and carbon nanotubes while also requiring higher loading in composites.
• At the other end of the value chain, carbon nanotubes have the possibility to enable several green technologies.
• For more details on the carbon nanotube market, please see the IDTechEx market report " Carbon Nanotubes 2023-2033: Market, Technology & Players ".

• The global market of carbon nanotubes is generally segmented by Multi-walled Carbon Nanotubes (MWCNT), Single-walled Carbon Nanotubes (SWCNT) and others (DWCNT, FWCNT).
• The global MWCNTs market has experienced renewed growth recently, driven by demand for conductive materials for lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and other energy storage applications, with many producers greatly increasing production capacities.
• Most of the main producers are targeting their materials as conductive additives for the batteries market.
• Cabot Corporation has plans to produce 15,000 metric tons/year of conductive carbon additives (CCA) including conductive carbons, carbon nanotubes (CNT), carbon nanostructures (CNS), and blends of CCAs by 2025.

• Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are gaining traction as a conductive additive at the cathode of LiBs, paving the way for significant expansion in the CNT market.
• IDTechEx project the market to grow in line with the booming lithium-ion battery market, given the utilization of CNTs as a conductive additive.
• As mentioned, the LiB market is growing rapidly, with the market being covered extensively by IDTechEx.
• For more details on the carbon nanotube market, please see the IDTechEx market report, " Carbon Nanotubes 2023-2033: Market, Technology & Players ".